Enlightened Vision of the Self

Author(s): Akalankadev, Devendra K Goyal
Publisher: Radiant Publishers New Delhi

Page 14

THE ENLIGHTENED VISION OF THE SELF
composed by Akalanka, are: Laghiyastraya, Nyayarinishchaya, Pramanasangraha and Siddhivinishchaya. Akalanka also wrote Tattrarthrartika (Rajuartika) commentary on Tattrartha Sutra of Umasvami or Umasvati and Ashtashati commentary on Acharya Samantabhadra's Aptamimansa.
Akalanka's works on logic were seriously studied even by nonJaina scholars in those days. In all likelihood his arguments were profitably utilised by them against the common rivals. It is said that Jayanta Bhatta (9th century A.D.), the logician of the Nyaya system of thought, had consulted Akalanka's works. Jayanta Bhatta's commentator Chakradhara (10th-11th century A.D.), while commenting on Jayanta's concerned sentences, reproduces five karikas from Akalanka's Siddhirinishchara and explains them extensively in his own words. This is very important and noteworthy. One more Kashmiri Pandit Bhattanarayanakantha (10th-11th century A.D.) refers to Akalanka and his Granthatraza by name in his writti on Mrgendratantra. His actual words are: sadasadradinam arhatam cha mateshu A kalankatritaya-prabhrtisu. This shows that Akalanka's works attracted the attention of non-Jaina scholars of even remote regions like Kashmir.?
Srarupa Sambodhana consists of two words: "szaroa”, which signifies the innate nature or character (szabhara) of the Self and "sambodhana" meaning an address to that starupa. The essential nature of the Self is consciousness and hence this treatise by Aklanka exhorts the Self to understand its true nature and exert oneself to realize it. Unless one is aware of the true nature of the Self, one remains oblivious of one's impurities and deviations in the same manner that one cannot possibly know the deterioration or the abnormality of the disease until one knows one's natural healthy condition. Accordingly, the work explains the real nature of the Self in the first ten verses. The next five verses describe the path to self-realization. In the remaining ten verses, the Self is exhorted to wake up and exert itself to realize the fullest development of the potentialities of the Self by either giving up or eradicating the impurities which constitute vibhara, i.e. deviation, distortion or modification of the intrinsic nature of the Self (suabhara or scarpa). Thus, Akalanka's aim is to remind the Self of its true nature and establish it in its natural state.
Since the Self alone is responsible for the deviations or the